RIGHTS-BURMA: For Sex Workers, A Life of Risks

When Aye Aye (not her real name) leaves her youngest son at home each night, she tells him that she has to work selling snacks. But what Aye actually sells is sex so that her 12-year-old son, a Grade 7 student, can finish his education.

RIGHTS-FRANCE: Policy Ignores Deeper Questions of Migration

European Union immigration ministers will hold a special meeting Thursday to adopt a new policy to protect the region's external borders against undocumented migration, French immigration minister Eric Besson has announced.

PAKISTAN: Transgenders Make Their Presence Felt at the Workplace

Dressed in women’s attire and a nose-pin errantly positioned on one nostril, 38-year-old Shahzadi adjusts her ‘dupatta’ (scarf) over her head as she enters the office of Cantonment Board Clifton, a provincial government bureau that recently hired her.

HAITI: Secure Shelters Scarce as Rainy Season Looms

A cacophony of murmurs and cries echoed through the neighbourhoods of Haiti's capital city Monday night as a violent aftershock shook people awake. Ten minutes later, another tremor rocked the ground, this time more smoothly back and forth.

POLITICS: Air Strike on Civilians Reverberates Beyond Afghanistan

Amid growing European discontent over the war in Afghanistan, the head of U.S. and NATO forces apologised Monday for an air strike that killed at least 27 civilians in the central part of the country Sunday.

EAST AFRICA: Improving Local Access to Family Planning

A severe shortage of highly-trained medical personnel is one of the many challenges to providing health care at a local level across Africa. Task shifting - permitting less-specialised people to carry out certain functions - is one proposal to over come this, but it is meeting resistance.

RIGHTS-THAILAND: Fears of Mass Deportation of Migrants Rise

Dao, a migrant worker from Burma, is struggling to make a decision that could affect not only her but her family as well. "There are many things to worry about," sighed the Shan state native who works in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai.

COTE D’IVOIRE: Crisis Within a Crisis Delays Elections Again

A week after President Laurent Gbagbo dissolved the government and the electoral commission, thousands marched in the city of Bouaké, damaging cars and shops. There have been almost daily demonstrations in cities across the country as Côte d'Ivoire's political crisis deepens.

POLITICS-PHILIPPINES: Rice and Condom on the Election Agenda

Rice and condoms do not usually land on the same list of household basics in the predominantly Catholic Philippines, but extremely poor couples here with huge families would choose rice if given the two options.

RIGHTS: Ex-inmates Recount Ordeal in North Korean Prison

Kim Tae-Jin remembers shuddering in fear when he arrived at Yoduk Prison, a notorious detention centre in North Korea, in 1998. "First, a fear of brutal uncertainty struck me. I doubted if I would remain alive there for long," Kim recalled.

MEDIA-INDONESIA: When ‘Adding a Friend’ on Facebook Can Be Risky

It is every parent’s worst nightmare in the Internet age – and for Syafei Asyhari, this happened when he found that his 16-year-old daughter, Latifa, fell into the clutches of traffickers she met online as friends.

DEVELOPMENT-ASIA: ‘Poverty Still Has a Woman’s Face’

Women and poverty still share an uncomfortable spot on the development matrix of countries across Asia-Pacific that are struggling to end deprivation, according to the newly launched third joint report of the United Nations and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

EUROPE: Fight Female Mutilation Harder Activists Urge EU

With hundreds of thousands of girls and women believed to be at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Europe, rights groups have mounted a campaign to get EU leaders to stop what they see as a barbaric and dangerous procedure.

SOUTH PACIFIC: ‘Poverty Measures Need Support of Rich Nations’

Social protection programmes could help alleviate poverty in the Pacific Islands region, but without the help of developed countries, they will not materialise, said an economic expert in this capital of Fiji.

RIGHTS-BURMA: When Hard Times Hit, Some Children Go to Factories

Fifteen-year-old Cho Cho Thet knows little about the world outside of the garments factory where she works.

HAITI: Quake Victims Overwhelm Medical Capacity

Seriously injured people continue to provide deep challenges to the city's barely functioning hospitals, weeks after a massive earthquake overwhelmed medical staff.

HAITI: Repairing the Third Rail – Part 3

As Haitians struggle to comprehend what has happened to their lives – and begin to try to put them back together – the United Nations is reaching out to "a vast and influential network" of about 60,000 voodoo priests.

EDUCATION-NEPAL: Unique School Aims to Be a Ticket to Equality

Had Uttam Sanjel stayed on in the Indian city of Mumbai to pursue his dream of becoming a Bollywood director years ago, the Samata (‘equality) schools that he set up here in Nepal may not be around today.

US-HAITI: The Failure of Aid – Part 2

The sick, injured and stressed people of Port au Prince are unlikely to be impressed by the small army of reconstruction contractors and development experts who are preparing to descend on Haiti. The reason? They've seen it all before.

US-HAITI: The Loan that Wasn’t – Part 1

On the one-month anniversary of the devastating earthquake of Jan. 12, Haitians continue to perish from a variety of causes, including death by red tape: they fall between the cracks of a still poorly-coordinated aid effort.

SINGAPORE: Migrant Workers’ Families Face Uncertainty Ahead

Instead of spending weekends at shopping malls in this bustling city-state, Rod Luacan and his family now keep themselves busy with activities in church on Sundays.